Those are things we are doing. Right now. Maybe in that order...
Brother is back in the Nutcracker, and they asked him to perform in two casts this year. He didn't get Fritz but he's excited to get to be in twice the amount of shows. We're hoping they'll have the orchestra in the final show December 23rd, because the final show is our favorite show and he's going to be performing in it along with 10 others shows.
So as you can see, given we have but one mother, we are busy, busy, busy, busy peoples. So busy! So, so, so very, very, super-extra busy!
We aren't online that much! But we are still doing our thing. Trust you us people, we are working! Little by little we are ordering Lego gnomes to double as dwarfs and Mom and Brother are figuring out how to build a Snow White Lego piece. I don't speak Lego like those two nerds do but they're piecing together a Snow White somehow.
Don't forget our version of the Snow White Mine Train ride, which is supposed to be for Disneyland the Original (I just gave it that name, cuz it's the original Disney theme park), is stuck between Fantasyland and Frontier Land, kind of across from Thunder Mountain Railroad. (we don't actually know if it ought to go there, we've only been to Disneyland ONCE our WHOLE LIVES! And we were little kindergarteners! We don't remember the lay of the land but we're guessing using park maps and a new Disneyland puzzle Mom got) 1/3 of the mountain dedicated to a Pecos Bill dark ride. How we will translate this into a Lego model, I have no idea but we just will!
Ok, that's enough jibber-jabbering for now, we'll update you all later!
Jr.s
Friday, September 13, 2013
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Gnomes!
We ordered Lego minifigure gnomes today! Just two of them, but they are going to be the dwarfs for our Lego Snow White mine coaster, and we have some options we are going over for Lego Snow White. We realized we will be needing quite a few of those gnomes in time, since our dark ride vehicles have a dwarf driver on board. That being said, we're going to also need a lot of Lego forest animals for this project.
Can't wait until the first batch of gnomes get here!
Can't wait until the first batch of gnomes get here!
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
WDI ImagiNations Contest 2014
Just in case they said yes, we wrote to the Imagineers to ask if they would consider letting us present our ride models during the contest final as one-time honorary special guests...but they said no. There are rules. Of course we knew there were rules but we kinda thought Imagineers loved bending them, so we asked anyways.
So now we just decided to stop writing for real...for now! I even said 'In the name of Walter Elias Disney', but that didn't work any magic on them. Heartbroken!
Our new goal, instead of trying to give a presentation of our version of a Snow WHite Mine Train coaster model to real Imagineers, is just to be invited to the grand opening of the Mine Train ride at Walt Disney World next year.
The awesomeness of that would be awesomer than the awesomest thing awesome ever had to offer!
We imagine that with enough Facebook likes and posting our model online just might do the trick...but we need to get real serious about it. And we know it will take much work but we still want to try and make a working model of our Snow White Mine Train dark ride vehicle. It needs a working animatronic on board, and that's what Brother Wonder will be learning to do. He has been very busy Legoing-I'm convinced he is as good as a Master Lego builder. If Imagineering won't take him, Lego will! http://legoderek.blogspot.com/
We found animatronic companies that actually work with Disney, and we are going to ask them the first things we need to learn to make an animatronic. Here are the places we are going to write:
Garner Holt, it looks like a really fantastic company, and we're hoping they're open to little Imagineers like us.
http://www.garnerholt.com/ghp-inc/about-us/tour.aspx
Sally Corp also looks pretty cool, we like to use their dark ride blueprint as a resource for our own dark ride drafts.
http://sallycorp.com/
Life Formations is an animatronic company that does a lot of museum stuff. The other two companies above do dark rides while Life Formations seems to just do animatronics. We can't go wrong with that!
http://www.lifeformationsblog.com/p/contact-us.html
Okay, I just wanted to update this blog so we can get focused on our new goal-winning an invitation to the new Mine Train ride opening. Wish us Luck!
So now we just decided to stop writing for real...for now! I even said 'In the name of Walter Elias Disney', but that didn't work any magic on them. Heartbroken!
Our new goal, instead of trying to give a presentation of our version of a Snow WHite Mine Train coaster model to real Imagineers, is just to be invited to the grand opening of the Mine Train ride at Walt Disney World next year.
The awesomeness of that would be awesomer than the awesomest thing awesome ever had to offer!
We imagine that with enough Facebook likes and posting our model online just might do the trick...but we need to get real serious about it. And we know it will take much work but we still want to try and make a working model of our Snow White Mine Train dark ride vehicle. It needs a working animatronic on board, and that's what Brother Wonder will be learning to do. He has been very busy Legoing-I'm convinced he is as good as a Master Lego builder. If Imagineering won't take him, Lego will! http://legoderek.blogspot.com/
We found animatronic companies that actually work with Disney, and we are going to ask them the first things we need to learn to make an animatronic. Here are the places we are going to write:
Garner Holt, it looks like a really fantastic company, and we're hoping they're open to little Imagineers like us.
http://www.garnerholt.com/ghp-inc/about-us/tour.aspx
Sally Corp also looks pretty cool, we like to use their dark ride blueprint as a resource for our own dark ride drafts.
http://sallycorp.com/
Life Formations is an animatronic company that does a lot of museum stuff. The other two companies above do dark rides while Life Formations seems to just do animatronics. We can't go wrong with that!
http://www.lifeformationsblog.com/p/contact-us.html
Okay, I just wanted to update this blog so we can get focused on our new goal-winning an invitation to the new Mine Train ride opening. Wish us Luck!
Monday, April 8, 2013
Yet Another Update!
We were reading the blog and I noticed that Mom talks too much when she's on. I'm just saying!
I also wanted to update that we didn't do the science fair and Brother didn't do his Rube Goldberg machine :(
It's a sad update.
Oh, and when we get to 100 likes we will write to Imagineering-not 1,000 likes because like, that's too many likes. Like yay! Like totally! Like, no way! (Like, that's how Mom says I talk, like totally not true!)
Like, I should totally be in bed. Like, boo hoo!
I also wanted to update that we didn't do the science fair and Brother didn't do his Rube Goldberg machine :(
It's a sad update.
Oh, and when we get to 100 likes we will write to Imagineering-not 1,000 likes because like, that's too many likes. Like yay! Like totally! Like, no way! (Like, that's how Mom says I talk, like totally not true!)
Like, I should totally be in bed. Like, boo hoo!
Friday, April 5, 2013
The Walt Disney Family Museum
During our spring break we went on a great adventure to San Francisco to visit my mission and The Walt Disney Family Museum. It was the most beautiful day ever in San Francisco! When we got to the Presidio, where the Walt Disney museum is located, we could see perfectly across the entire bay! We took photos of the Golden Gate bridge, even though it was red, and had the best-ever picnic on the grass watching the sailboats glide across the water. We played a great game of tag and clapped when Mom did cartwheels without falling on her head. We also lost our new video camera in the grass without knowing it, but a man and his sons found it, looked at the pictures, and spotted us up the lawn to give us our camera back. Thank you kind, honest people!! You're great!! And thanks to them, we were able to take videos and snap pictures inside the Snow White special exhibit and the Disney Museum. We met up with our cousins and Aunt and Uncle at the very end, they were too late to buy tickets for the museum so we went to Fisherman's Wharf for In & Out Burger instead. They were late because they had to buy our Uncle his class A SFFD uniform for his special dinner, because he is getting an award from the fire department for being an awesome guy. He learned his awesome paramedic skills from my brother the stuntman. We would go to his award dinner but Mom said they didn't need to witness my Uncle in action to prove his awesomeness, and besides, it's during the school week, and it's for grown-ups anyways.
The Walt Disney Family Museum
Hanging out with Walt Disney
The Golden (not) Gate Bridge
Snow White Exhibit
There She Is!! Lily Belle!!!!
Mary Blair's Desk!
Steamboat Willy Interactive Exhibit
Trajectory!
The Jr. Imagineer's word of the week is: TRAJECTORY!
We will be studying a physics word every week at a level that we kids can understand each week to help us design our rollercoaster. We just got in our Science of Imagineering DVD on Trajectory and will be watching it this weekend after Mom gets home from work. Stay tuned to learn along with us!
We will be studying a physics word every week at a level that we kids can understand each week to help us design our rollercoaster. We just got in our Science of Imagineering DVD on Trajectory and will be watching it this weekend after Mom gets home from work. Stay tuned to learn along with us!
Monday, March 18, 2013
Imagineering Explained
Mom here.
This summer, we will take a model of the family version of a Snow White Mine Car rollercoaster to give a full presentation of our ride to the real Disney Imagineering. We will use the ImagiNations http://disneyimaginations.com/contest as a guideline for how we will prepare and present our project.
When we first came up with the our Dwarf's rollercoaster several years ago the kids wanted to Imagineer a scavenger hunt with a maze for the queue line to FIND the ride, putting a trap door in the floor to dump guests into the mother lode of jewels (a ball pit). While I talked them out of it back then, they're just as excited as ever to see their plan in model form.
Now that they're older both kids are skilled and knowledgeable enough to create their own model by themselves. When we finish with the rollercoaster model the kids will branch out onto their own to create the maze queue. We will then be presenting the first coaster as a family team with the kids giving their own presentation of the maze and scavenger hunt. The rollercoaster model will be created out of hobby train materials with storyboards and a PowerPoint presentation while the maze will be made out of Legos with a presentation/walk through using Lego stop-motion video.
The Ride:
The Snow White ride is to be two separate rides with separate queues: a dark ride typical of the classic Disneyland Fantasyland rides and a rollercoaster worthy of its own Disney mountain. The Disney term 'dark ride' means that a ride is contained completely within a building. Peter Pan, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Snow White's Scary Adventure are all good examples of dark rides.
We did extensive Disney Imagineering research to make our presentation as close to a work of their own as possible. Disney says every ride starts with a story so the first thing we did was to craft a tale to turn into a ride.
Snow White is preparing to marry her prince and the Dwarfs are in charge of mining the jewels for her crown and ring. Within their mine is 'the mother lode' which is a huge stash of their most precious jewels hidden deep within the mining mountain, accessible only by one map which Dopey accidentally lost. Now, everyone needs to help the dwarfs search the countless tracks of the mine to find the 'mother lode' and bring the map back to the group so they can race back in, fit the jewels into the jewelry, and make it back in time for Snow White's wedding.
The hunt for the mother lode is the dark ride portion, with the queue line beginning the story for the guests. The vehicles in the dark ride are to be driven by an animatronic dwarf with a forest friend companion who is supposed to help map the path the vehicle has taken, for not all vehicles will find the mother lode, but all will at least drive past it. The vehicles are to interact with one another as well as the scenery it passes, with dwarfs waving to each other, talking to each other and making comments along the way. When the ride is over, guests have the option of exiting the ride and leaving the mountain altogether, or continuing in a queue to the rollercoaster portion.
The rollercoaster portion has two queues for the story, one is to pick up the jewels and make the crowns for the wedding, the other is to race to through the forest with the crowns and jewelry to the wedding itself. The loading for the first coaster loads in an area visible to the dark ride's loading station. When guests exit the first coaster portion, they again have the option to exit into the queue for the second portion of the coaster ride and complete the story via rollercoaster or exit the ride altogether taking in the rest of the story visually through the exit queue.
Even though the Imagineers have their own version of this ride coming through, we will craft a model of our interpretation of the ride to present to the Imagineering team. Now, cross your fingers and say some prayers while the kids will again write to Imagineering to ask for the opportunity to come down and present our models for the sake of it. Let's hope for a great response!
This summer, we will take a model of the family version of a Snow White Mine Car rollercoaster to give a full presentation of our ride to the real Disney Imagineering. We will use the ImagiNations http://disneyimaginations.com/contest as a guideline for how we will prepare and present our project.
When we first came up with the our Dwarf's rollercoaster several years ago the kids wanted to Imagineer a scavenger hunt with a maze for the queue line to FIND the ride, putting a trap door in the floor to dump guests into the mother lode of jewels (a ball pit). While I talked them out of it back then, they're just as excited as ever to see their plan in model form.
Now that they're older both kids are skilled and knowledgeable enough to create their own model by themselves. When we finish with the rollercoaster model the kids will branch out onto their own to create the maze queue. We will then be presenting the first coaster as a family team with the kids giving their own presentation of the maze and scavenger hunt. The rollercoaster model will be created out of hobby train materials with storyboards and a PowerPoint presentation while the maze will be made out of Legos with a presentation/walk through using Lego stop-motion video.
The Ride:
The Snow White ride is to be two separate rides with separate queues: a dark ride typical of the classic Disneyland Fantasyland rides and a rollercoaster worthy of its own Disney mountain. The Disney term 'dark ride' means that a ride is contained completely within a building. Peter Pan, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Snow White's Scary Adventure are all good examples of dark rides.
We did extensive Disney Imagineering research to make our presentation as close to a work of their own as possible. Disney says every ride starts with a story so the first thing we did was to craft a tale to turn into a ride.
Snow White is preparing to marry her prince and the Dwarfs are in charge of mining the jewels for her crown and ring. Within their mine is 'the mother lode' which is a huge stash of their most precious jewels hidden deep within the mining mountain, accessible only by one map which Dopey accidentally lost. Now, everyone needs to help the dwarfs search the countless tracks of the mine to find the 'mother lode' and bring the map back to the group so they can race back in, fit the jewels into the jewelry, and make it back in time for Snow White's wedding.
The hunt for the mother lode is the dark ride portion, with the queue line beginning the story for the guests. The vehicles in the dark ride are to be driven by an animatronic dwarf with a forest friend companion who is supposed to help map the path the vehicle has taken, for not all vehicles will find the mother lode, but all will at least drive past it. The vehicles are to interact with one another as well as the scenery it passes, with dwarfs waving to each other, talking to each other and making comments along the way. When the ride is over, guests have the option of exiting the ride and leaving the mountain altogether, or continuing in a queue to the rollercoaster portion.
The rollercoaster portion has two queues for the story, one is to pick up the jewels and make the crowns for the wedding, the other is to race to through the forest with the crowns and jewelry to the wedding itself. The loading for the first coaster loads in an area visible to the dark ride's loading station. When guests exit the first coaster portion, they again have the option to exit into the queue for the second portion of the coaster ride and complete the story via rollercoaster or exit the ride altogether taking in the rest of the story visually through the exit queue.
Even though the Imagineers have their own version of this ride coming through, we will craft a model of our interpretation of the ride to present to the Imagineering team. Now, cross your fingers and say some prayers while the kids will again write to Imagineering to ask for the opportunity to come down and present our models for the sake of it. Let's hope for a great response!
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Summer Adventure
Mom is working on helping us make a facebook fan page for our project. We decided that even though there is a new Snow White Mine Car rollercoaster in Walt Disney World, we still want to make a complete model and present our own version of the ride to real Disney Imagineers. Maybe with enough likes on the page, the Disney Legal department will let us through to the real Imagineers and they will invite us over to present the ride.
We will present the project like an ImagiNations entry: http://disneyimaginations.com/index.html and it will give us something fun to do as a family. We're going to wait for the Facebook page to pick-up 1,000 likes before we write again to Imagineering asking if we can present our model to them.
While we do that, we're making the design & story boards and hunting down materials for the model itself. And we're off! Kind of. Actually, we're home sick today...so we're not really off to anywhere.
Until next time!
We will present the project like an ImagiNations entry: http://disneyimaginations.com/index.html and it will give us something fun to do as a family. We're going to wait for the Facebook page to pick-up 1,000 likes before we write again to Imagineering asking if we can present our model to them.
While we do that, we're making the design & story boards and hunting down materials for the model itself. And we're off! Kind of. Actually, we're home sick today...so we're not really off to anywhere.
Until next time!
Sunday, March 10, 2013
The Latest in Jr. Imagineering
Great news world, we have a new computer! A good computer too!
With the new computer, Brother can now start stop-motion movies and upload them to his Lego blog. The only thing standing in the way to making them this very minute is his homework. No really, he hates to do his homework.
Two weekends ago (or was it three weekends?) The World's Greatest Hobby tour came through town and we of course went to see it. We got our very own Carolwood Lily Belle train set, and Mom stopped by Michael Broggie's Carolwood Pacific booth to pick-up her very own autographed book on the history of Walt Disney's Railroad. We are very serious about making that trip to Disneyland this summer and stopping at the Carolwood Pacific in Griffith Park. Fairy Godmother wasn't able to send us last year to Disneyland and we now know the truth as to why, as well as the truth about Fairy Godmother. I won't say it out loud here in case not everyone knows the truth, I don't want to hurt their feelings.
We are back to Imagineering, well, we were Imagineering at home but not sharing our adventures online. Mom decided it is important to do as much Imagineering as possible since we don't have too much science in our new schools. There is going to be a Science Fair, and Brother really wants to make a Lego Rube Goldberg contraption for the science fair but his teacher has a funny way of teaching class and usually tells everyone they're too stupid to do anything and doesn't really let them join in on any good stuff. He was super excited for the school's Math Bowl this year, and Mom went out to get stuff for him so he could be ready since there was a lot on the take home test he needed to learn and hadn't been taught in class but we didn't catch the date for the Math Bowl. So suddenly it was the Math Bowl, and Brother said his teacher passed out the test and told the class no one would make it and was real mean. So guess what, no one made the Math Bowl in his class, including him. So now here comes Science Fair...we'll see where that goes. Mom thinks Imagineering will be a great substitute for Science Fairing and Math Bowling. So stayed tuned...because we're back!
With the new computer, Brother can now start stop-motion movies and upload them to his Lego blog. The only thing standing in the way to making them this very minute is his homework. No really, he hates to do his homework.
Two weekends ago (or was it three weekends?) The World's Greatest Hobby tour came through town and we of course went to see it. We got our very own Carolwood Lily Belle train set, and Mom stopped by Michael Broggie's Carolwood Pacific booth to pick-up her very own autographed book on the history of Walt Disney's Railroad. We are very serious about making that trip to Disneyland this summer and stopping at the Carolwood Pacific in Griffith Park. Fairy Godmother wasn't able to send us last year to Disneyland and we now know the truth as to why, as well as the truth about Fairy Godmother. I won't say it out loud here in case not everyone knows the truth, I don't want to hurt their feelings.
We are back to Imagineering, well, we were Imagineering at home but not sharing our adventures online. Mom decided it is important to do as much Imagineering as possible since we don't have too much science in our new schools. There is going to be a Science Fair, and Brother really wants to make a Lego Rube Goldberg contraption for the science fair but his teacher has a funny way of teaching class and usually tells everyone they're too stupid to do anything and doesn't really let them join in on any good stuff. He was super excited for the school's Math Bowl this year, and Mom went out to get stuff for him so he could be ready since there was a lot on the take home test he needed to learn and hadn't been taught in class but we didn't catch the date for the Math Bowl. So suddenly it was the Math Bowl, and Brother said his teacher passed out the test and told the class no one would make it and was real mean. So guess what, no one made the Math Bowl in his class, including him. So now here comes Science Fair...we'll see where that goes. Mom thinks Imagineering will be a great substitute for Science Fairing and Math Bowling. So stayed tuned...because we're back!
Friday, November 9, 2012
We're Still Here!
We just wanted to say that we're still around, and we're still Imagineering...but just not as much. We've been super busy with school and soccer and gymnastics and the Nutcracker. This year we BOTH MADE IT!!!! Go us! It's a professional production too, not just a dance studio Nutcracker, it's good learning for us.
Last year brother was fascinated to learn that the clock some company dancers pop out of during the party scene didn't really work and the hands didn't move. They sure had a talk with him-their set came special made from RUSSIA! Can't wait for this year!! But the saddest news is that this year there is no live music. WaaaH! The moral of the story, support your local ballet!
Last year brother was fascinated to learn that the clock some company dancers pop out of during the party scene didn't really work and the hands didn't move. They sure had a talk with him-their set came special made from RUSSIA! Can't wait for this year!! But the saddest news is that this year there is no live music. WaaaH! The moral of the story, support your local ballet!
Monday, September 17, 2012
Long Time No Blog!!
Hi everyone! Guess what!? We're still around!!! Yeah, we blew Grandma's computer a year or so ago, then we just didn't keep up with this we moved on to a blog with our real name and Brother started Lego stuff. We still do Jr. Imagineer stuff, but hadn't updated the blog.
But guess what then!?!?!? An Imagineer, a REALLY REAL Imagineer mailed us a goodie bag out of the blue! Really! Just mailed us some hats and a pin and a book that he autographed!!! AWESOME!!!!! Then he asked how we were and said why Imagineer's aren't allowed to look at our Imagineering stuff because real people send them their ideas and then sue them. BAD PEOPLE!
Even better news is that Mom and Brother found a website showing how to make model rollercoasters. It's awesome! I'll hook up a link later, now, it's dinner time!!! See you soon!
But guess what then!?!?!? An Imagineer, a REALLY REAL Imagineer mailed us a goodie bag out of the blue! Really! Just mailed us some hats and a pin and a book that he autographed!!! AWESOME!!!!! Then he asked how we were and said why Imagineer's aren't allowed to look at our Imagineering stuff because real people send them their ideas and then sue them. BAD PEOPLE!
Even better news is that Mom and Brother found a website showing how to make model rollercoasters. It's awesome! I'll hook up a link later, now, it's dinner time!!! See you soon!
Friday, August 19, 2011
Brother Gets a Letter!
Guess what! Guess what! Brother got a letter from Walt Disney! Not the Walt Disney, of course, that would be scary... And not from the Audio Animatronics department in Imagineering either, but still, he got a letter from the Disney Company! He has added it to his collection of official letters from official places and put it right on top of his Lego letter.
They said they couldn't use our ideas for rides because they have to come from Imagineering itself. Boohoo, they are great ideas! But he got a packet that talks about how Imagineers got to be Imagineers. They also said they bet he'll be a famous Imagineer some day. I beat we will ALL be famous Imagineers! Mom too!
We just read on Twitter some great stuff about what Disneyland is going to do to Fantasyland. I wish they WOULD use our ideas! We have them because we would love to see them. When we looked at what Brother got from Disney, we got a great idea. Mom should be an Imagineer! After all, she was the one who started all the ideas for us, and then lets us grow our own. She is very creative. We have been on the news a few times over the summer because of creative fun stuff Mom has done. Really, she did it all because we are driving her NUTS, but still!
Isn't that exciting everyone!! YEAH!
They said they couldn't use our ideas for rides because they have to come from Imagineering itself. Boohoo, they are great ideas! But he got a packet that talks about how Imagineers got to be Imagineers. They also said they bet he'll be a famous Imagineer some day. I beat we will ALL be famous Imagineers! Mom too!
We just read on Twitter some great stuff about what Disneyland is going to do to Fantasyland. I wish they WOULD use our ideas! We have them because we would love to see them. When we looked at what Brother got from Disney, we got a great idea. Mom should be an Imagineer! After all, she was the one who started all the ideas for us, and then lets us grow our own. She is very creative. We have been on the news a few times over the summer because of creative fun stuff Mom has done. Really, she did it all because we are driving her NUTS, but still!
Isn't that exciting everyone!! YEAH!
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Jr. Imagineering Update
We are still Imagineering! We had a week and 1/2 of vacation but we didn't forget our goal. School will start soon too, Mom thinks we will go to a homeschool charter this year since we can't afford our old school and this way she can help us better. We will practice the homeschool stuff and all to see if we kids will actually follow along in homeschool. we might be a hand full for mom we are called double trouble around town for a good reason!
We borrowed a bunch of Disney Classic dvds from the library including a Chip & Dale dvd. Some are so classic that Chip has two front teeth and Dale doesn't talk at all. We have to think of the Chip and Dale ride for Critter Country, we don't have a story or anything. We thought up one of Chip and Dale, where you will ride around a forrest and look in at their tree house while they hunt for nuts, annoy Donald, and hide from Pluto.
We haven't heard back from Imagineering yet, but we are hoping we do! We sent two letters now, the second Brother sent one to Audio-Animatronics to ask for advice on where to start for the Mine Car dark ride cars. Also, we asked for a new map to Disneyland so we can draw all over it.
Our dark ride has a audio animatronic dwarf driving the individual mine cars through the mine. They need to look real, talk, and look around. They will have special pexiglass around them so no one gets into the mine where people can't see them and touch them. They could bite. We should program them to bite if a bad person tries to mess with them or tag them or look under their coats to pull their wires.
For our Ode to Walt Disney Railroad, we found the original maps for Disneyland had Edison Square to the right of Main Street going between Main Street and Tomorrowland. If they have anything backstage there, we are going to pretend to put everything underground like a Utilidor, and build on top of it the Ode to Walt Disney. The ride portion of this railroad needs a live, upperlevel view of the real Disneyland Railroad Depot. It also needs space for the model railroads, gallery and shopping. We are adding a retail line of Disneyland model railroad trains and parts. After Brother and Mom went to the National Model Railroad Convention, he really, really wants to buy a model train of his own. He wants to make a model monorail and people mover thingy too. Actually, Mom suggested it, and inventing model rollercoastering. She said, "Why don't we just invent model rollercoastering, where you make a model of a rollercoaster the same way you build a model train?" We think that's the best new idea for our project since we thought up Club Penguin Headquarters.
In a little bit, we will make an actual schedule and deadlines for our Imagineering projects, blogs and updates so everyone who likes to read this doesn't think we gave up.
We borrowed a bunch of Disney Classic dvds from the library including a Chip & Dale dvd. Some are so classic that Chip has two front teeth and Dale doesn't talk at all. We have to think of the Chip and Dale ride for Critter Country, we don't have a story or anything. We thought up one of Chip and Dale, where you will ride around a forrest and look in at their tree house while they hunt for nuts, annoy Donald, and hide from Pluto.
We haven't heard back from Imagineering yet, but we are hoping we do! We sent two letters now, the second Brother sent one to Audio-Animatronics to ask for advice on where to start for the Mine Car dark ride cars. Also, we asked for a new map to Disneyland so we can draw all over it.
Our dark ride has a audio animatronic dwarf driving the individual mine cars through the mine. They need to look real, talk, and look around. They will have special pexiglass around them so no one gets into the mine where people can't see them and touch them. They could bite. We should program them to bite if a bad person tries to mess with them or tag them or look under their coats to pull their wires.
For our Ode to Walt Disney Railroad, we found the original maps for Disneyland had Edison Square to the right of Main Street going between Main Street and Tomorrowland. If they have anything backstage there, we are going to pretend to put everything underground like a Utilidor, and build on top of it the Ode to Walt Disney. The ride portion of this railroad needs a live, upperlevel view of the real Disneyland Railroad Depot. It also needs space for the model railroads, gallery and shopping. We are adding a retail line of Disneyland model railroad trains and parts. After Brother and Mom went to the National Model Railroad Convention, he really, really wants to buy a model train of his own. He wants to make a model monorail and people mover thingy too. Actually, Mom suggested it, and inventing model rollercoastering. She said, "Why don't we just invent model rollercoastering, where you make a model of a rollercoaster the same way you build a model train?" We think that's the best new idea for our project since we thought up Club Penguin Headquarters.
In a little bit, we will make an actual schedule and deadlines for our Imagineering projects, blogs and updates so everyone who likes to read this doesn't think we gave up.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
The National Model Train Convention
Over the weekend Mom and Brother went to the National Model Train Convention where they learned a lot about model trains and model making.
First, they wanted to check out the trains for our family Imagineering Ode to Walt Disney project. If you don't know, we are Imagineering stuff at home, pretending that we're making real rides and attractions for Disneyland. We are doing our own version of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Car ride smooshed between Fantasyland and Frontierland. We are doing an Ode To Walt Disney, which is a train depot and scale train ride that takes guests through the Carolwood Pacific and various Walt Disney Park's Railroads, along with model railroads of every Disney Park Railroad across the whole world.
To learn more about the train attraction, Brother and Mom went off to learn about model trains. Brother took charge and start asking all the vendors there if they had any Disney Railroad train models or the Bachmann Walt Disney's Carolwood Pacific set; which they found! Then Mom told brother they had no money to buy it and he was bummed, he looked hard for it!
Mom gave brother the flip camera to video tape models he thought were neat, and he took a good one of a very nice mountain, bridge, waterfall display at a booth selling model rock making kits. Mom and brother realized we all need to be learning this stuff if we're going to try and make real models in the garage of each of our attractions! We really need to figure how to make the mountain for our Mine Car ride.
Model trains will be the best bet for making the working models. While we finish up the storyboards, which are taking forever and then some, and Mom finishes up the stories for us, because she once wrote stories so she knows how to work my brother and my ideas in, we are going to start model railroading. Plus, Brother really wants his own model railroad set to play with after going to that convention, and Grandpa is super excited to help.
We are still working on getting that Mine Car story online as soon as we can, until then, that's all for now. I am up way to far past bedtime.
First, they wanted to check out the trains for our family Imagineering Ode to Walt Disney project. If you don't know, we are Imagineering stuff at home, pretending that we're making real rides and attractions for Disneyland. We are doing our own version of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Car ride smooshed between Fantasyland and Frontierland. We are doing an Ode To Walt Disney, which is a train depot and scale train ride that takes guests through the Carolwood Pacific and various Walt Disney Park's Railroads, along with model railroads of every Disney Park Railroad across the whole world.
To learn more about the train attraction, Brother and Mom went off to learn about model trains. Brother took charge and start asking all the vendors there if they had any Disney Railroad train models or the Bachmann Walt Disney's Carolwood Pacific set; which they found! Then Mom told brother they had no money to buy it and he was bummed, he looked hard for it!
Mom gave brother the flip camera to video tape models he thought were neat, and he took a good one of a very nice mountain, bridge, waterfall display at a booth selling model rock making kits. Mom and brother realized we all need to be learning this stuff if we're going to try and make real models in the garage of each of our attractions! We really need to figure how to make the mountain for our Mine Car ride.
Model trains will be the best bet for making the working models. While we finish up the storyboards, which are taking forever and then some, and Mom finishes up the stories for us, because she once wrote stories so she knows how to work my brother and my ideas in, we are going to start model railroading. Plus, Brother really wants his own model railroad set to play with after going to that convention, and Grandpa is super excited to help.
We are still working on getting that Mine Car story online as soon as we can, until then, that's all for now. I am up way to far past bedtime.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Storyboarding
We are storyboarding. Imagineers start their rides with a story, and work from there. We learned that Imagineers don't just come up with a story, but they make a big whole board full of drawings, stories, pictures and ideas to make an entire story for their ride or attraction. When they get their whole story down, they make a storyboard, and that storyboard helps them design the blueprint for the ride.
We had a story and all, but when were going to design the ride, we got stuck. It was hard to figure out just which way to make the ride turn and twist. Mom was helping us design the ride, but was having trouble. Then she realized that storyboarding was the answer. She has done these before. No, she has used these before, but not drawn them out herself. We are now drawing out a storyboard for our Snow White Mine Car/Mother Lode ride. We can tell you that it takes a very long time to actually draw out each little box with the story.
We're also coming up with a storyboard for the Ode to Walt Disney train depot, but we're focusing on the Snow White ride first. We will keep posting as we go along here. Now, I have to go so I can get back to drawing and drawing and drawing some more.
More to come!
We had a story and all, but when were going to design the ride, we got stuck. It was hard to figure out just which way to make the ride turn and twist. Mom was helping us design the ride, but was having trouble. Then she realized that storyboarding was the answer. She has done these before. No, she has used these before, but not drawn them out herself. We are now drawing out a storyboard for our Snow White Mine Car/Mother Lode ride. We can tell you that it takes a very long time to actually draw out each little box with the story.
We're also coming up with a storyboard for the Ode to Walt Disney train depot, but we're focusing on the Snow White ride first. We will keep posting as we go along here. Now, I have to go so I can get back to drawing and drawing and drawing some more.
More to come!
Monday, June 27, 2011
Letter To The Imagineers
Did we say we mailed a letter to Disney Imagineering already? We found the address on Disney's website. It was not the mail tube, because that is taking too long. It is a big long blank sheet of paper and it is making our heads spin, all that blankness. But it's all good. Mom is going nuts with it the poor lady. She is getting really into this!
We have the DVD's for Snow White, The Frog & The Princess and Disney's Melody Classics, and we have a long roll of tracing paper. We stopped Snow White where the dwarfs are in the mine and traced the mine onto the tracing paper, and we will move it over to the poster for Imagineering. Mom spent the weekend designing a queue line-that's Q U E U E, and she has written an actual script for the dwarfs in line. It is AWESOME! We kids are starting to think Mom is a real Imagineer. We couldn't figure out how to make a blueprint for the ride and got stuck, but Mom said this is where the storyboard and scripts come into play. She wrote stuff out, and made a story, then we copied onto the tracing paper and know what the mine will look like, and now the whole blueprint for the ride is coming together. The story tells us which way to go.
We ran out of battery for the Flip camera, but we are getting ready to make another video showing our Mother Lode ride off. It is looking cool. Brother has come up with some neat water parts to the mine, and we decided instead of only a few guests going through the Mother Lode, everyone will go through.
We picked a spot using our map from our one and only visit to Disneyland 2 years ago, and our Mine Mountain will go between Frontierland and Fantasyland towards the back of the park, where we see a little walkway. We really haven't seen if there is anything there that we would be designing this ride on top of or not, but that's okay, we're going ahead with it. With Mom's queue line, she has created a mountain that is for Fantasyland on one side, and Frontierland on the other. We added a Pecos Bill ride for Frontierland, and are making the rides share the mountain. We will use Disney magic to hide the mountain from each land, so no one realizes they are one mountain, but think they are two, and no one is aware that they are sharing the mountain or area.
The Pecos Bill ride came from watching Disney's Classics Melodies, and seemed a perfect ride for Disneyland. We are still reading the map to see where the Frog and Princess ride will go in New Orleans, we need a spot for the Tangled Tower, and we need to find out if ToonTown will still be around at Disneyland, to add a Steamboat Willie Ride. We are waiting for a Chip and Dale Classics DVD to come in from the library so we can start work on a Chip and Dale ride for Critter Country, and Mom is coming up with a Raccoon Ride and Fox & The Hound ride for Critter Country too. We just can't think of anything for Adventure Land.
We have found a spot for our Ode to Walt Disney Railroad ride and soon we will e-mail Michael Broggie to 'pick his brain' as Mom calls it. Ask questions, get answers, find advice, stuff like that. I, Sister, am drawing, painting and am in charge of art. Brother is building and in charge of robotics, and Mom is turning things into reality. We are having fun, and can't wait to hear back from Imagineering!
We have the DVD's for Snow White, The Frog & The Princess and Disney's Melody Classics, and we have a long roll of tracing paper. We stopped Snow White where the dwarfs are in the mine and traced the mine onto the tracing paper, and we will move it over to the poster for Imagineering. Mom spent the weekend designing a queue line-that's Q U E U E, and she has written an actual script for the dwarfs in line. It is AWESOME! We kids are starting to think Mom is a real Imagineer. We couldn't figure out how to make a blueprint for the ride and got stuck, but Mom said this is where the storyboard and scripts come into play. She wrote stuff out, and made a story, then we copied onto the tracing paper and know what the mine will look like, and now the whole blueprint for the ride is coming together. The story tells us which way to go.
We ran out of battery for the Flip camera, but we are getting ready to make another video showing our Mother Lode ride off. It is looking cool. Brother has come up with some neat water parts to the mine, and we decided instead of only a few guests going through the Mother Lode, everyone will go through.
We picked a spot using our map from our one and only visit to Disneyland 2 years ago, and our Mine Mountain will go between Frontierland and Fantasyland towards the back of the park, where we see a little walkway. We really haven't seen if there is anything there that we would be designing this ride on top of or not, but that's okay, we're going ahead with it. With Mom's queue line, she has created a mountain that is for Fantasyland on one side, and Frontierland on the other. We added a Pecos Bill ride for Frontierland, and are making the rides share the mountain. We will use Disney magic to hide the mountain from each land, so no one realizes they are one mountain, but think they are two, and no one is aware that they are sharing the mountain or area.
The Pecos Bill ride came from watching Disney's Classics Melodies, and seemed a perfect ride for Disneyland. We are still reading the map to see where the Frog and Princess ride will go in New Orleans, we need a spot for the Tangled Tower, and we need to find out if ToonTown will still be around at Disneyland, to add a Steamboat Willie Ride. We are waiting for a Chip and Dale Classics DVD to come in from the library so we can start work on a Chip and Dale ride for Critter Country, and Mom is coming up with a Raccoon Ride and Fox & The Hound ride for Critter Country too. We just can't think of anything for Adventure Land.
We have found a spot for our Ode to Walt Disney Railroad ride and soon we will e-mail Michael Broggie to 'pick his brain' as Mom calls it. Ask questions, get answers, find advice, stuff like that. I, Sister, am drawing, painting and am in charge of art. Brother is building and in charge of robotics, and Mom is turning things into reality. We are having fun, and can't wait to hear back from Imagineering!
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Carolwood
Have you heard of the Carolwood Pacific Railroad Company? We hadn't until yesterday, catching some downtime between cousin playtime. Researching Walt Disney and railroads for our Imagineering project, we found this: http://www.carolwood.com/ and this: http://www.carolwood.org/.
We followed a link to this site, which talks about Walt Disney's barn, some call it the birth place of Disney Imagineering: http://ocresort.ocregister.com/2011/03/18/exploring-walt-disneys-steam-train-barn/72807/
This is pretty neat stuff, and we just can't wait to turn our projects into reality.
Our mail tube is getting done. It was hard to get started-a big long poster sheet of blank white paper was hard to work with. So much blankness, no one knew where to start. We have as many Disney Imagineering books as the library offers in our house, one due today, and we are finding lots of inspiration from them to get our white paper less white and mailed. With all this Imagineer stuff around, Mom has decided she wants to be an Imagineer herself!
Mom has spent the past week learning about folks like John Hench, Mary Blair, and 'The Nine Old Men' to help the project stay alive. We hit a bump as soon as we started trying to make our imaginary rides real models. Where do we even start? We thought of a Mine Car ride, we have pictures in our heads, but how can we make that real enough to show the real Imagineers our stuff? We don't know. We have been reading, watching The Science of Imagineering dvds, Disney Parks dvds, and looking up stuff online, and it looks like we just might be able to do this! Go us!
Once we mail off our stuff, we hope to hear back from Imagineering and get pointers and win friends.
We followed a link to this site, which talks about Walt Disney's barn, some call it the birth place of Disney Imagineering: http://ocresort.ocregister.com/2011/03/18/exploring-walt-disneys-steam-train-barn/72807/
This is pretty neat stuff, and we just can't wait to turn our projects into reality.
Our mail tube is getting done. It was hard to get started-a big long poster sheet of blank white paper was hard to work with. So much blankness, no one knew where to start. We have as many Disney Imagineering books as the library offers in our house, one due today, and we are finding lots of inspiration from them to get our white paper less white and mailed. With all this Imagineer stuff around, Mom has decided she wants to be an Imagineer herself!
Mom has spent the past week learning about folks like John Hench, Mary Blair, and 'The Nine Old Men' to help the project stay alive. We hit a bump as soon as we started trying to make our imaginary rides real models. Where do we even start? We thought of a Mine Car ride, we have pictures in our heads, but how can we make that real enough to show the real Imagineers our stuff? We don't know. We have been reading, watching The Science of Imagineering dvds, Disney Parks dvds, and looking up stuff online, and it looks like we just might be able to do this! Go us!
Once we mail off our stuff, we hope to hear back from Imagineering and get pointers and win friends.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Ride Design
Last week Mom helped us put together a K-nex roller coaster to see if it would be useful to use for the Mine car ride. We don't know if it can be made into something different like Lego's.
We all went to a hobby and toy store to look at stuff that you can build real looking models with. Mom was excited that they had chunks of foam and I thought the bottle of stuff that makes water was really cool. They had books and dvds to teach you about making models and Mom was telling us about different train sizes because she was thinking about the Walt Disney train ride attraction when she saw a special Walt Disney model train. She wants to buy it really bad but we can't buy it right now.
I want to make my Tangled tower a ride, with spinning swings, so I am changing it a little, and Mom started thinking really hard about a ride for Critter Country after we watched a Disney old time movie.
Our tube is nearly finished but we had a a family reunion to go to and we watched my cousin dance. Mom told us we are going back to our school in a few years and we are sad so we took a break from Imagineering. This weekend our cousins are staying with Grandma and Grandpa, so we are excited. One of our cousins has autism. He started playing with my brother like playing tag my brother's favorite game and we are happy. He won't play with my brother but plays next to him and my brother was sad but now he plays tag and my brother is super happy and just can't wait to play with him. He is our age and his sister is going to be in first grade. We love to play and dance and sign she is all normal and funny.
Mom wants to mail the tube before they come incase it gets hurt sometimes our cousin likes to rip things into little bits. My mom says it is what he does. He would rip into even numbers of the same size. We used to have special bricks we played with in the backyard that are shapes and he brock them into same size parts so mom says to finish the poster and send it so we can be safe.
Mom got some fresh Disney books from the library and we read them at night like bedtime stories. She is funny about this stuff. She needs to write the names down but they are Imagineering books. One is about how Imagineers do things and how a guy wrote to an imagineer and the guy wrote back and they wrote back and forth and then he grew up to be an Imagineer. I hope when we write Imagineers write us back and are nice to us and help us figure things out. This guy wrote about his robotic parrot he made and i think this will be my brother. I am an artist, my brother is the robotics and construction guy. Great-grandpa gave him a real tool box when he was just 5 and my brother actually used it for real. He still does. He builds stuff, and won a Lego contest and had his picture in a magazine. He is really good at this stuff. He will do the robotics. Mom wants him to make the Mine car ride and she will help. She has made robots before. I am the artist and my mom is really excited. So i hope that Disney writes back and forth with us and they like us for real.
We all went to a hobby and toy store to look at stuff that you can build real looking models with. Mom was excited that they had chunks of foam and I thought the bottle of stuff that makes water was really cool. They had books and dvds to teach you about making models and Mom was telling us about different train sizes because she was thinking about the Walt Disney train ride attraction when she saw a special Walt Disney model train. She wants to buy it really bad but we can't buy it right now.
I want to make my Tangled tower a ride, with spinning swings, so I am changing it a little, and Mom started thinking really hard about a ride for Critter Country after we watched a Disney old time movie.
Our tube is nearly finished but we had a a family reunion to go to and we watched my cousin dance. Mom told us we are going back to our school in a few years and we are sad so we took a break from Imagineering. This weekend our cousins are staying with Grandma and Grandpa, so we are excited. One of our cousins has autism. He started playing with my brother like playing tag my brother's favorite game and we are happy. He won't play with my brother but plays next to him and my brother was sad but now he plays tag and my brother is super happy and just can't wait to play with him. He is our age and his sister is going to be in first grade. We love to play and dance and sign she is all normal and funny.
Mom wants to mail the tube before they come incase it gets hurt sometimes our cousin likes to rip things into little bits. My mom says it is what he does. He would rip into even numbers of the same size. We used to have special bricks we played with in the backyard that are shapes and he brock them into same size parts so mom says to finish the poster and send it so we can be safe.
Mom got some fresh Disney books from the library and we read them at night like bedtime stories. She is funny about this stuff. She needs to write the names down but they are Imagineering books. One is about how Imagineers do things and how a guy wrote to an imagineer and the guy wrote back and they wrote back and forth and then he grew up to be an Imagineer. I hope when we write Imagineers write us back and are nice to us and help us figure things out. This guy wrote about his robotic parrot he made and i think this will be my brother. I am an artist, my brother is the robotics and construction guy. Great-grandpa gave him a real tool box when he was just 5 and my brother actually used it for real. He still does. He builds stuff, and won a Lego contest and had his picture in a magazine. He is really good at this stuff. He will do the robotics. Mom wants him to make the Mine car ride and she will help. She has made robots before. I am the artist and my mom is really excited. So i hope that Disney writes back and forth with us and they like us for real.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Youtube
We have tried to make our very, very first Flip camera post on YouTube about the Seven Dwarfs ride we are making a model of. It is only the very first model, and the very first post-so we have no clue what we are doing.
We are also learning how to link those videos to the blog. Hang with us while we learn the in and out of blogging, youtube and video posts.
Here is the first dry run of the summary; my brother has a small speech problem, so he is kind of hard to understand, but here it is.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Sickaroo
We have all been sickaroo. Mom too. She was the worst but sometimes she gets sick. She had a big fever and could not do much at all. Poor Mommy :(
Since we were sick we didn't Imagineer all week. We have a lot to do now! I think we need to go to Disneyland for more research this summer, to make sure we get the rides right. We have a box in the garage that has a lot of old battery toys, and we are going to take them apart to see if we can use them for our model rides.
Sadly, since we were sick we now have too much school work to make up before we can go back to Imagineering and finish our big scroll to mail off. I am so mad I have to do my makeup work! I can't wait to draw my pictures and mail it. I will write and we will post pictures when that all happens so everyone can see.
Since we were sick we didn't Imagineer all week. We have a lot to do now! I think we need to go to Disneyland for more research this summer, to make sure we get the rides right. We have a box in the garage that has a lot of old battery toys, and we are going to take them apart to see if we can use them for our model rides.
Sadly, since we were sick we now have too much school work to make up before we can go back to Imagineering and finish our big scroll to mail off. I am so mad I have to do my makeup work! I can't wait to draw my pictures and mail it. I will write and we will post pictures when that all happens so everyone can see.
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